A BIRTHDAY LETTER

Dear Blake -

How is it possible that something which happened 17 years ago is so embedded into my memory it's as though I was experiencing it right this very minute?

How is it possible that I remember every minute detail of my 22-hour labor and subsequent
c-section, yet it was SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO TODAY? How is it possible that I remember every detail of your precious newborn face, fingers, toes as though I was holding you for the first time right now?

Parenthood has a way of doing that - of making seventeen years fly by as quickly as turning a single page of a calendar.

I will admit to secretly wanting a little girl before you were born. But when I saw you for the first time I realized I had been wrong. I had wanted a boy all along. Suddenly having a little boy was the best thing in the world. Everybody should want a boy!! Everybody needs a son!!

Because boys are so fun!

Because we were young parents, and because you were our first, we probably made a lot of mistakes on you. There were many things we did not know, things we had to learn as we went along. Because with parenthood you definitely get on-the-job training.

But one thing we did know was how to love. And, my stars, did we love you the very second we saw you. Surely no baby was ever as loved as you were. Surely no other couple felt the magic we felt when we looked at you. Surely nobody had ever felt this way before.

That's the way it is with new parents. They are very self centered and wrapped up in their own little world. And our world was wrapped up in a hospital receiving blanket.

We did not have a lot of money back then, so you did not wear designer baby duds. You did not have a nursery fit for a magazine spread. You never got a motorized car or a grand play structure for the backyard. But we had faith that our love and devotion would suffice.

And I think it has.

I used to say you were a fussy baby, but now I know I was probably a fussy mother. I was probably nervous and anxious and passed those feelings on to you. But, oh my goodness, you were the sweetest, most compliant little toddler and preschooler. You were so full of joy and a love for life, I would have taken six of you.

There was a time when you were about a year old that I told your dad "The house will be a mess for the near future. I cannot tear myself away from this child to tend to the mundane details of housework. I've fallen in love with another man; he's short and chubby, nearly bald and only has 8 teeth, but he's my world." And your dad just went along.

Because if people thought I was crazy over you, they thought your dad was a blubbering idiot because of you. That kind of love does that to the most stoic of men. I wish we could turn back time to allow you to watch your dad welcome you into the world. He was meant to be a dad. He was meant to be YOUR dad. He was hands-on from the very minute you were born, and he's still hands-on, even as you are several inches taller than he and are approaching adulthood.

Approaching adulthood.

How did we get here?

How did we get to the point where we sit at a restaurant drinking coffee and OUR LITTLE BOY orders cappuccino?

How did we get to the point where our little boy is discussing colleges and career choices?

How did we get to the point where our little boy can have me in stitches laughing at his very irreverent and sarcastic humor?

How did we get to the point where our little boy sometimes jingles when he walks because he has his own set of car keys?

How did we get to the point where we stand at the door and watch our little boy drive off with his friends to do...well, whatever it is you do with them?

How did we get to the point where, when I do get a hug from you, you have to bend yourself into a horseshoe to grant me that blessing? Where to feel your forehead to check for a fever I have to stand on my tiptoes?

I don't know how we got here. It is truly incomprehensible that those long days and nights have turned into lightning fast years.

Every night before I sleep I thank God for you. I thank him for the joy you give me and for keeping you safe yet another day.

I thank him for answering my prayer for a little boy when I hadn't even prayed it.

Happy Seventeenth Birthday, Blake. You are my world.